Sefko: It might be messy, but Mavericks can find cap room for Deron Williams

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Louis DeLuca/Staff Photographer

By this summer, the Dallas Mavericks could see a completely revamped roster filled with fresh new faces. The Mavericks have nine players under contract for next season, but four of them (Lamar Odom, Vince Carter, Brandon Wright and Kelenna Azubuike) are team options, meaning the Mavericks can choose to not retain the player, with no salary cap ramifications -- except in Odom’s case. Here is a look at some key details for all 15 contracts.

The Mavericks don’t need anybody’s help to loosen up enough money to offer Deron Williams a maximum contract this summer.

The NBA salary cap will again be at least $58 million. If the Mavericks renounced all their players on final-year deals, they could get down to around $43 million on the cap.

After that, they could use the one-time amnesty clause on Brendan Haywood — and he remains the only logical candidate — to reduce the payroll to around $35 million.

That’s the goal.

“It’s like a balance sheet,” team president Donnie Nelson said. “You look at where you need to get and go down the list.”

So how do the Mavericks set their priorities and end up where they need to be?

To maximize their salary-cap room come July 1, they have to cut payroll. In simplest terms, they are called labor pains — all needed to produce the baby they hope will be Williams this free-agent season.

To get the ledger as low as possible, the Mavericks will have to renounce some, but not all, of their players whose contracts expire July 1. Those include Jason Terry, Jason Kidd, Brian Cardinal, Delonte West, Yi Jianlian and Ian Mahinmi.

They also will have to either exercise their options on Brandan Wright, Vince Carter and Kalenna Azubuike or renounce them.

And, of course, they must exercise the $2 million buyout option on Lamar Odom.

So what does it mean when a player is renounced?

That means cutting all rights to a player and allowing him to become an unrestricted free agent.

It doesn’t necessarily mean the player won’t be back with the Mavericks. The new collective bargaining agreement allows teams to re-sign players they have renounced with no waiting period using a team’s cap space, exceptions or minimum salaries.

Here’s a for-instance:

The Mavericks renounce their rights to Carter, Azubuike, Mahinmi, Cardinal, Kidd, Terry, West and Odom. They retain building blocks Yi and Wright because their salary-cap numbers for next season are next to nothing and they would bump the payroll up less than $1 million each.

After that, they would be very likely to jettison Haywood via the amnesty provision, cutting his $8.3 million off the cap next season and nearly $30 million total over the following three years. Owner Mark Cuban still would have to pay that, unless another team signed Haywood. But it wouldn’t count against the salary cap or luxury tax.

The Mavericks did the same thing with Michael Finley in 2005, saving more than $50 million in luxury-tax payments.

After those moves, the Mavericks would have six players under contract: Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Marion, Roddy Beaubois, Dominique Jones, Yi and Wright, assuming none of them is traded during draft time or the lead-up to free agency.

The Mavericks then would have about $23 million to go after free agents, giving them the ability to sign Williams to a max deal (starting at about $15.5 million).

That would leave perhaps another $8 million to pursue another, secondary free agent. Or, that money could be used to offer new deals to some of their renounced players. Think of deals starting in the area of $5 million for Terry and maybe half that for Kidd.

After that, filling out the roster would require getting players who are willing to take minimum salaries. The Mavericks have a history of being creative with players to get them on board with relatively small salaries, such as Carter and West last season.

It all hinges, of course, on recruiting Williams.

But for the first time under Cuban, the Mavericks don’t have to rely on anybody but themselves to make it happen.

Follow @ESefko on Twitter.

Key NBA dates

May 30: Draft lottery

June 6-10: NBA draft combine, Chicago

June 12: NBA Finals begin (could move up to June 10).

June 26: Last possible date for Finals

June 28: 2012 draft

July 1-10: Moratorium period

July 11: Teams may begin signing free agents.

July 13-22: Las Vegas Summer League

Note: Free-agent talks can start during the moratorium period, but personnel moves cannot be official until July 11.

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